Science Fair Report


Problem: Does surface area affect how fast something dissolves?

Introduction: Erosion in rocks is caused by water constantly wearing and tearing on the rock. Another form of erosion is when wind constantly blows and grains of something are moved to a different location. I'm going to test test water erosion I will see if a cube of sugar dissolves faster than a teaspoon of sugar. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erosion, www.geography4kids.com/files/land_erosion.html,geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/erosion.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/5682-canyons-how-erosion-works-video.htm

Background information:

I wanted to know if water would makes bigger land masses wear away at the same rate as smaller land masses. So I'm using sugar cubes for the bigger land masses and regular sugar for the smaller land masses.

Hypothesis:

I think that the regular sugar will dissolve faster than the sugar cubes.

Materials:

• plastic cups
• water
• sugar cubes
• spoon

Procedure:

1. fill two plastic cubs with water
2. drop one sugar cube and one crushed sugar cube into the water
3. stir with a spoon until one of them dissolves

Independent Variable:

The size of the sugar

Dependent Variable:

How fast the sugar dissolves.

Results:

The individual pieces of sugar dissolved faster while the cubes were lumps at the bottom

Conclusion:

My hypothesis was correct, the sugar cubes did not dissolve as fast as the grains of sugar.

Possible Cause of Error:

• Different amounts of sugar
• already dissolved sugar in the water
• different amounts of water

Possible Application:

I could show someone that it's possible for landmasses to gradually get smaller or disappear entirely.